Before I forget

Tags

art bead, cabochon, earrings, mica powder, polymer clay

I made another pair of forget-me-not earrings that I kept aside for a separate blog. And here’s why…

Forget-me-not earrings by Cate van Alphen

Save

I have made a Patreon page. It’s a site for creators to find sponsors in order to spend more energy on creating and less time worrying about how to pay the bills. As part of making my page I clarified some goals for myself: I want to use more art beads (made by other artists) and I want to make more tutorials.

I planned for the earrings above to incorporate both goals. I’ve got the art beads: I made the ivory coloured floral disks from polymer clay and the blue ceramic beads are by Jenny Gholson-Morris. But the tutorial part: not so much.

Making a video tutorial is proving more time-consuming than anticipated – I’m struggling to get footage that is in shot and in focus. Oh, right! This is why I set up the Patreon page in the first place – because at the moment I haven’t got much time for figuring this out. So until I can make a full tutorial, here’s a little tip.

Faux concrete cabochon by Cate van Alphen

Save

I made this cabochon as a way to use up the scraps from making carved beads. The muse wanted a matt concrete effect. My logical brain tells me this is to contrast with the shiny fragments. I wanted something more interesting so I drew in some scrolls and dots. I thought it still needed some subtle pep so I mixed green iridescent mica powder with a drop of water to paint into the dents. This caused the water (and mica) to puddle in the indentations and not all over the surface of the piece. I did the same thing for the petals of the flowers on the earrings.

I used Perfect Pearls for this technique as it has a built-in resin and I painted it onto uncured polymer clay. It didn’t seem to stick as well when painted onto baked clay.

By the way, if you would like to sponsor me, you can start from $1 a month and change your mind any time you like.

 

Gifts given

Tags

faux ivory, handmade bead, lentil, polymer clay, stained glass

Here are the gifts I made this year.

Stained glass lentil bead necklace by Cate van Alphen

This lentil bead necklace is a descendant of one of my earliest necklaces, and was actually a Christmas gift for the same sister. I hope she agrees it’s an upgrade. This one was a very easy baby to make :).

The next necklace was for a Boxing Day birthday. looks simple but it took a huge amount of time to make.

Egg bead necklace by Cate van Alphen

The first issue what the fact that the beads are ivory and white, so I had to work really carefully to keep the polymer clay clean and free from specks. The next issue, which I really felt when it was time to sand, is that the beads are…

Egg bead necklace by Cate van Alphen

BIG! Each bead is about the size of a bantam egg and there are a lot of them to make a long continuous necklace. As they say on the cookery competition programs: “Something this simple needs to be executed perfectly.”

Faux ivory egg beads by Cate van Alphen

For the surface decoration of the beads, I made a marbled cane using ivory, lots of white and transparent polymer clay (I had to redo some of them since my first cane was too yellow – doh!). Here is a tutorial I did for a marbled cane which in turn was based on this tutorial for mother of pearl.

Polymer clay challenge week 50 – focal WIP

Tags

2015PCchallenge, crushed helix, damascus ladder, focal bead, polymer clay, red

I’ve had to accept a work in progress for this week’s focal bead. All the extra Christmas activities have been taking their toll on my time.

Focal bead WIP by Cate van Alphen

The pattern on the bead is a crushed helix (or reduced Damascus Ladder). I still need to finish the ends (I’m going to wrap a string of polymer around the domes) and sand the bead.

Maybe I’ll finish next weekend (sometime after I finish making Christmas gifts, and beads for next week’s challenge but before we go Christmas shopping)? Hmmm, ok, maybe not NEXT weekend, but surely before the end of the year? Oh wait, that’s only two weeks away!

Red colour palette recipes

Tags

colour mixing, colour recipe, Fimo, polymer clay, red

Here are my colours for the red palette of my Spectrum Year. I had a bit of a struggle adding a sixth colour, but I decided on something eventually.

Here are the recipes using Fimo Professional. The numbers are percentages. I wrote an earlier blog explaining how I measure colours.

Light Grey

• 95 white
• 1.5 true magenta
• 3.5 true blue

Red

• 60 true red
• 40 true magenta

Carmine

• 20 true red
• 79 true magenta
• 1 black

Plum

• 19 true red
• 76 true magenta
• 5 black

Purple

• 50 white
• 40 true magenta
• 10 true blue

Blue Grey

• 65 white
• 10 true magenta
• 23.5 true blue
• 1.5 black

Polymer clay challenge week 43 – focal

Tags

2015PCchallenge, doughnut pendant, polymer clay, purple, violet

This week I made a purple polymer polka-dot pendant. 🙂

Hollow polymer clay doughnut pendant by Cate van Alphen

I have been rearranging my work room, so I had to keep things simple for this week of my 2015 Polymer Clay Challenge.

P.S. I wrote a tutorial a while back for making the hollow doughnut shape (just use your favourite method to decorate a sheet of clay). Here’s a polka-dot tutorial (it’s similar to what I did except I made some dents in my background sheet of clay first).

Violet colour palette

Tags

colour mixing, colour palette, Fimo, polymer clay, purple, violet

I’m a little late with the start of violet since I wanted to finish my indigo beads. Here are the colour recipes I plan to use. I’m using Fimo Professional and the numbers represent percentages. Previously I wrote a post on how I mix colours.

Light Grey

• 95 white
• 1.5 true magenta
• 3.5 true blue

Grey Green

• 61.5 white
• 3 true yellow
• 10 true magenta
• 23 true blue
• 2 true green
• 0.5 black

Indigo

• 30 true magenta
• 70 true blue

Dark Purple

• 59.5 true magenta
• 39.5 true blue
• 1 black

Violet

• 80 true magenta
• 20 true blue

Purple

• 50 white
• 40 true magenta
• 10 true blue

 

Let the purple-fest commence. Yippee!

Polymer clay challenge week 33 – toggle

Tags

2015PCchallenge, Cate van Alphen, chunky bead, handmade component, Indigo, marble, polymer clay, toggle

I was tempted to make more shank buttons this week for my indigo colour palette toggle, but then I realised time was running out for me to try some of the more interesting toggle mechanisms I’d planned at the beginning of the year.

Polymer clay clasp by Cate van Alphen

This clasp is formed from two hooks. By aligning the angular cut holes of the two pieces at 90°, they slide together to form a chain link. It’s very satisfying to open and close :D.

Indigo link clasp by Cate van Alphen

The clasp is based on one from a chunky wooden bead necklace that I found in a charity shop, but I’ve made mine from polymer clay instead of wood. It took a few prototypes to get this far, and it is still a work in progress.

Prototype clasps

The first couple of clasps were a bit too flexible for my liking, but I didn’t really want to make everything a lot bigger and thicker. I put wire inside the third attempt as reinforcement, but you can just see it peeping through on the inside of the hole.

Clasp Doh! by Cate van Alphen

From the photos above it looks like I’ve cracked it, but turn one of the hooks over and there’s wire sticking out. I lost track of which side had the gap in the wire for cutting the hole through, and I chose the wrong place. Doh!

I’ve given the link a good pull apart and although the loops do flex open slightly (the one without the wire noticeably more so) I think a necklace made using the clasp would survive a tug from a toddler. So on the bright side cutting the wrong side helps to prove that the wire does provide some support, but also that I need to think of a way to keep track of where to cut ;).

Indigo colour palette recipes

Tags

2015PCchallenge, colour mixing, colour palette, fimo professional, Indigo, polymer clay

I’m a little bit late posting my colour recipes for the next step in my 2015 Spectrum Year (if you don’t mind, just hop in your time machine and read this last Tuesday). We went away for the weekend and all of a sudden it was time for indigo! I’m beginning to suspect that I could spend a whole year on each palette :o.

These recipes are for Fimo Professional, and the numbers represent percentages. I wrote a blog explaining how I use them for mixing colours.

Mid Blue Grey

• 65 white
• 10 true magenta
• 23.5 true blue
• 1.5 black

Dark Blue

• 30 true magenta
• 70 true blue

Indigo

• 59.5 true magenta
• 39.5 true blue
• 1 black

Chocolate

• 50 white
• 17 true yellow
• 25 true red
• 8 black

Beige

• 99 white
• 0.45 true yellow *
• 0.05 true green *
• 0.5 black

* (0.5% mix of 90 true yellow 10 true green)

Light Grey

• 95 white
• 1.5 true magenta
• 3.5 true blue

The colours don’t adhere very strictly to the inspiration palette because I wanted the schemes to play nicely together. I decided to increase the differences between the indigo and the purple palettes so the purples are more blue. I also desaturated the green to a beige colour rather than introduce another green (the ones in the green palette were too bright for the other colours).

Yum, those hints of purple are starting to make me drool :).

Blue colour palette recipes

Tags

blue, colour mixing, colour palette, colour recipe, Fimo, polymer clay

Today is the start of my blue period 😉 so here are the colour recipes.

Light Grey

• 95 white
• 1.5 true magenta
• 3.5 true blue

Light Blue

• 80 white
• 20 true blue

Blue

• 100 true blue

Purple

• 50 white
• 40 true magenta
• 10 true blue

Yellow

• 100 true yellow

I haven’t quite finished with green yet as I still have some beads to show for this week of the 2015 Polymer Clay Challenge. Also I’m hoping that I will be able to get some of the green components listed in my Etsy shop soon.

Glitter repair

Tags

Cate van Alphen, glitter, green, handmade beads, polymer clay

I couldn’t bear looking at the cracks in my green beads anymore, but I didn’t want to completely obliterate the green patterns, so I added a layer of transparent polymer clay mixed with green glitter. I backfilled the cracks with some green clay first to reduce the chance of air bubbles being introduced. I made a few spacer beads using the excess transparent clay.

Green glitter beads by Cate van Alphen

This time when I baked them I put the top shelf back into the oven with a tile on top to protect the beads. It seemed to work – I didn’t find any cracks or air bubbles 🙂